


Future Echoes

by Vertiga



Category: Destiny (Video Game), Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, Gen, Michael-centric, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Vault of Glass, Vex - Freeform, destiny au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7143356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vertiga/pseuds/Vertiga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Guardians, dying is easy. Michael can die four times before breakfast and shake it off. But there are some fates worse than death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mogartrash's AU challenge.

He woke up blind. His radar, HUD and visual camera had all vanished into a sea of white.

‘Ghost?’ he croaked, fear sticking in his throat.

‘Michael!’ his Ghost replied, far off and crackling with static.

‘I can’t see,’ Michael said. He flexed his fingers, hoping for a gun, or at worst the comforting sizzle of a charged punch. There was something hard under his hand; angular rock of some kind biting into his glove. He couldn’t feel much through the thicker plates of his armour, but there was pressure on the front of his body.

 _I’m on the ground? Why am I lying down?_ he thought, flexing his fingers again.

‘Your armour overloaded,’ his Ghost informed him, still crackling like a bad pre-Golden Age radio. ‘Rebooting.’

‘Where am I?’ Michael asked, hoping against hope that he was somewhere safe.

‘Unknown.’

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Michael asked, praying that his fireteam weren’t similarly helpless.

‘Unknown.’

Frustration welled, chasing back the fear a little. 

‘What the fuck do you know?’ he snapped.

‘Unknown.’

Michael snarled inside his helmet. He couldn’t stay blind and prone – the last thing he remembered was a Vex ambush, and a strangely glowing minotaur that had exploded beside him. Even if the Vex thought him dead, they’d come back to break his armour down for materials before too long.

‘Is there air?’ he asked.

‘Is there what?’ his Ghost said, distracted.

‘Breathable air, you mechanical fuck! Can I breathe here?’ Michael yelled, muffled in his dead helmet.

‘Scans indicate low oxygen.’

‘But there is oxygen. Fuck it!’

He yanked his heavy arms up to his face, overloaded joint mechanisms groaning and sticking, and popped the catches under his chin. His helmet seal broke with a hiss, letting in cold, dusty air. He yanked his helmet off completely, and blinked in the sudden darkness.

‘That might not have been wise,’ his Ghost chided from just above his shoulder, turning on its light and illuminating a small circle of barren black rock around them. Its voice was clear again, and it was some comfort to know that whatever had taken him out hadn’t damaged his conduit to the Traveller.

‘I can handle it. Better light-headed than blind,’ Michael snapped.

The air was still, stuffy in a way that suggested that Michael was in a small space, and every breath left his lungs feeling barely half full. If he hadn’t had a Guardian’s increased endurance, he doubted he could have stayed conscious for long.

There was no sign of life, hostile or otherwise, and Michael relaxed a fraction. At least he probably wasn’t going to have to fight with his armour still locked up.

‘How long on the reboot?’ he asked.

‘At least a few minutes. Your helmet systems are insisting that my calibration readings are impossible.’

Michael’s gut clenched. That never boded well.

‘Leave it for last, I can cope. Just get me moving.’

‘Hydraulics online,’ his Ghost confirmed, and Michael grabbed his helmet and got to his feet at once.

The sudden change in position made his head swim, and he stopped and panted for a minute, waiting for the blood rush to settle.

‘Can you light this place up?’ he asked, squinting into the encroaching darkness.

His Ghost obliged, expanding its illumination as far as it could.

Michael found himself in an angular space, perhaps twenty feet square and barely taller than he was, and thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t cracked his head on the roof as he stood up. The last thing he needed was a concussion.

The four walls were black and shiny, with small square lumps and protrusions at seemingly random intervals. There was a small gap at ground level to his right, and a faint suggestion of blue-tinged light shone through from whatever lay beyond.

‘Definitely Vex,’ Michael murmured. ‘Any idea where we are?’

His Ghost whirred uncomfortably. ‘We have not moved from our last known location.’

Michael scowled. Still in the Vault of Glass, then, but the rock around them definitely hadn’t been there before. ‘How long was I out?’

‘Unknown,’ his Ghost said, helpful as ever.

Michael wished he knew how fast Vex machinery could spread and “grow” a structure like this. He had only encountered the Vex as soldiers, not as a subject to be studied, and he had never shared the Warlocks’ interest in them before. Ryan would have known more about his situation, or even Geoff, as crappy a Warlock as he pretended to be.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked quietly, all too aware of silence where their voices ought to be.

‘I am detecting no life signs. There is a faint light signature forty yards to our right.’

Michael absorbed the words like a punch to the gut. No life signs.

‘How faint? Is it a Guardian?’ he demanded, trying to keep his voice steady.

‘If it is, it is not... not a living one,’ his Ghost said reluctantly.

Michael took several deep breaths, clenching his knuckles convulsively around his helm. His own solar light felt strong, still singing in his veins. This was no Hive Dreadnaught, no pit of Darkness. There was no reason a Guardian here should not be revivable. 

Moving slowly, wary of passing out, he crouched down and crawled out of the enclosed space.

The vast expanse of Atheon’s chamber stretched out before him, the pale glass columns glowing blue and eerie overhead. The dull metal circles of the abandoned time gates loomed nearby, surrounded by scattered Vex parts. Beyond them, the great triangle of the vault twinkled and shifted unceasingly, the faint ring of moving glass chiming in the dead air, but all else was silent and still.

Michael took a long, slow look, hoping for some sign of an ally, or at least a weapon, but he found nothing.

‘Show me,’ he said at last, already dreading what they might find. ‘Lead me to the signature.’

His Ghost led him forwards, drooping with reluctance.

Michael kicked through the remains of goblin limbs and harpy tendrils in his way, venting some measure of his frustration on the dead machines. He stopped dead when he spotted the different mechanical body his Ghost was leading him towards.

‘Geoff,’ he croaked, his voice cracking with horror. He stumbled the last few paces and dropped to his knees.

Among the bronze sea of ruined Vex, Geoff’s lurid green and orange chassis stuck out like a beacon. The Exo’s eyes were black, his face lights extinguished, and there was almost nothing left of his robes. Michael’s tentative touch set the ragged field-weave crumbling, exposing the gaping, blackened wound where Geoff’s core should be.

‘Light help me,’ he gasped, clasping his fist over his mouth to hold back the rising bile. He rocked back on his heels, repelled by the still, dusty form of his friend. He had seen all of his fireteam die, it was all in a day’s work for any Guardian, but they never stayed dead. They were never abandoned to the ravages of time like this.

‘Time,’ he mumbled, when he had fought down the urge to be sick. ‘Same place, but not the same time. Geoff must... he must have been dead for hundreds, thousands of years for his armour to break down like this.’

His Ghost whirred agreement. ‘That is the information that your helmet computer refuses to accept.’

‘Fucking Vex,’ Michael snarled, glaring at the scattered machines. ‘Next time Ikora wants readings from the Vault, she can get them herself.’

‘Ikora is unlikely to want anything at this point,’ his Ghost reminded gently.

Michael swallowed and nodded jerkily. Right – far future, probably. Even if there were Guardians still holding back the dark, it was unlikely that any of the Vanguard he had known would still be alive.

‘Can you contact anyone?’ he asked. ‘Is – is there anybody out there?’

His Ghost pulled in its segments, the picture of dismay. ‘I cannot reach anyone. I have tried.’

Michael clenched his teeth. ‘It doesn’t mean... the Vault fucks with signals all the time. It doesn’t mean there’s no one out there.’

‘It is possible,’ the Ghost conceded. ‘But I am receiving Fallen signals from the surface loud and clear. If there were Guardians on Venus in this era, I believe I would hear them.’

‘Can I get to my ship? Can I break orbit, go back to Earth?’ he asked, seeking some hope of escape.

His Ghost whirred unhappily. ‘I cannot detect your ship. It seems likely that it was destroyed or stolen at some point in the past.’

Michael inhaled shakily, his head swimming with bad news and low oxygen.

‘So it’s just us stuck here. Just me and Geoff. That’s something. We’ve fought armies before, just the two of us,’ he declared, patting Geoff’s metal shoulder, determinedly ignoring the way the filaments of Geoff’s robes stuck to his gloves like cobwebs. ‘We’ll get him up and go kick the future’s ass.’

‘Michael,’ his Ghost said quietly, carefully, sounding wary of heaping more disaster on a Guardian so close to the edge. ‘Michael, his Ghost is dead.’

Michael shook his head. ‘Bullshit. It can’t be.’

‘Look, in his hand.’

Leaning forward, Michael carefully prised open the stiff mechanical fingers. Trapped in Geoff’s palm was the small, round core of a Ghost, stripped of its segments and blackened by harpy fire.

Michael took it carefully in hand, turning it round and round in hopes of feeling some spark, some trace of light left in the tiny piece of metal. It was as dead and dark as everything else around him.

Geoff had watched his Ghost die, known that he had no hope of resurrection, and given his last full measure fighting the Vex.

‘When did... When did this happen? There were six of us. Where are the others? Why didn’t they take him home?’ Michael blurted out.

His Ghost hummed. ‘I cannot say. There are no other light signatures nearby, but the rest of your fireteam is organic. Their remains would not have lasted this long.’

‘So you can’t even tell me if all of them died here?’ Michael demanded, glaring through his tears.

‘I am sorry.’

Michael stared at the fragment of metal in his hand, little more than a large marble without the power of the Traveller behind it.

‘You can revive him,’ he insisted. ‘We’ve done it before, in places where the darkness was strong. One ghost boosts another, right? But there’s no darkness here, you should be able to do it alone!’

His Ghost drooped again. ‘Perhaps I could,’ it allowed. ‘But I could not sustain you both. One Ghost, One Guardian.’

‘Then help him instead of me!’ Michael cried, his heart aching. ‘I don’t want this future!’

The long-threatened tears spilled down his cheeks, and he doubled over as heaving sobs ripped through him. It was too much – Geoff lying dead and corroding, and all the rest long-since rotted and crumbled to dust. 

The last thing he remembered before the Vex ambushed them was watching Ryan recalibrate their scanner and laughing at Gavin’s attempts to traverse the entire vault without touching the floor. It was impossible that they could both be so long dead that not even bones remained.

His head pounded, the lack of oxygen and his racking sobs leaving him teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Bright lights flashed in the corners of his eyes, and Michael found himself wishing for darkness as he never had before. He was a Sunbreaker, a beacon of power and determination, but what point was there to getting up, to going on, with his fireteam, his friends, his entire world lost? It must be a bleak future indeed if there were no Guardians on Venus at all.

He sagged, going limp in his armour, his chest burning, and he was savagely grateful for the pain. Physical discomfort was far easier to bear.

‘You must breathe!’ he heard his Ghost insist, faint and far away, and he ignored it. Perhaps, if he suffocated, his Ghost would decide to abandon him and resurrect Geoff instead. An Exo would have far better chances of long-term survival on Venus than he would.

The world turned grey, and Michael passed out.

 

~

 

He came to again some unknown time later, stiff and sore from kneeling in his locked armour. He blinked several times before the radar and shield readout in his peripheral vision registered, so familiar that he barely noticed them. His Ghost must have finished rebooting his helmet and stuffed him back into it after he had passed out. Michael couldn’t bring himself to be grateful. Life support systems were meaningless when he didn’t want to be alive.

‘What’s the point?’ he asked dully, unlocking his aching legs and sitting down properly.

His Ghost whirred into view, scanning him at once.

‘Keeping you alive is my purpose,’ it reminded him. ‘I cannot allow you to expire without good reason.’

‘I’d say this is a fucking good reason!’ Michael yelled, gesturing sharply at the metal bodies strewn around them. ‘Look at where we are. Look at _when_ we are! Everything we fought for is gone.’

‘Not everything. Even in this future, the Traveller endures somewhere. I would know if it were gone.’

‘I don’t fight for the Traveller,’ Michael growled. 

His Ghost pulled its segments inward, offended, but Michael didn’t care. It was hardly news that fighting the good fight was secondary to fighting for his friends. Most Guardians were the same, once the first shine of heroism had been scuffed away.

He sat in silence for a long while, determinedly not looking at Geoff’s lifeless frame. Instead, he stared around the vault, taking in the lofty glass columns and the black and grey Vex architecture. At length, his gaze caught on the time gates. He remembered fighting Atheon, and using those gates to escape after Time’s Conflux had teleported them, but he had no idea if they could be programmed to go anywhere else.

‘Has anyone ever figured out how those work?’ he asked, pointing listlessly at one of the metal circles.

His Ghost perked up, seeming happy to hear him speak.

‘The Vex use the gates to access their network, travelling in space and time to emerge where they are needed.’

‘No shit. I’ve blown up plenty of them to stop the fuckers coming,’ Michael said tightly. ‘But aside from when we fought Atheon, has any Guardian used them?’

The Ghost paused, considering. ‘Praedyth might have,’ it said.

Michael snorted. ‘Yeah, and we know how that ended.’

Their fireteam had followed Praedyth’s distress signal down into the Vault, and found only ancient bones where they had hoped for a living Guardian. It was that troubling discovery that had led to Ikora sending them back to gather readings in the first place, so Michael wasn’t exactly Praedyth’s biggest fan.

 _Fucking Vex got me just like they got him,_ he thought bitterly. _Past or future, it makes no difference if you can’t get home._

He went back to staring listlessly at Geoff’s poor Ghost, turning the core over and over in his hands, vaguely aware of his own Ghost floating off to look at the gates more closely.

Light would sustain a Guardian for a long time, but eventually Michael would need to eat, drink and sleep. Humans, even enhanced ones, weren’t meant to survive on Venus forever. He needed to find a way out of the Vault and get back to the surface to see what resources he could find, but it was impossible to find the motivation to move. 

If he died of thirst his Ghost could keep resurrecting him, but he couldn’t see much point in surviving. Even the most determined Guardian had to give up eventually, and Michael was heartsick at the idea of living without his friends.

‘Michael!’ his Ghost cried.

He jerked his head up, almost hoping for some enemy, something to fight and a reason to die.

Instead, his mouth fell open at the sight of the Vex gate opening. White energy spiralled out from the centre of the gate, widening into a flat doorway that pulsed and hummed.

‘What did you do?’ he yelled, jumping to his feet. He had no guns, but a Titan’s fists were weapon enough, in a pinch.

‘Nothing!’ his Ghost insisted. ‘I was merely probing the network, and something reacted to my investigation.’

Michael stood squarely in front of the blinding gate, waiting for an enemy to emerge, but nothing came.

He hesitated, wondering what might lie on the other side of the portal.

‘It can’t be worse than here, can it?’ he said to his Ghost.

‘I cannot say,’ it said, spinning in confusion. ‘But if you wish to attempt a crossing, you cannot wait. I do not know how long the gate will be open.’ 

Michael nodded tightly, contemplating his bleak situation. There might never be another chance. 

‘It can’t be worse than this,’ he said firmly, and stepped forward into the light, the core of Geoff’s Ghost clenched in his palm like a talisman.

 

~

 

He emerged from the gate blind and disoriented, white light giving way to sudden dimness. His foot caught on the sharp edge of some Vex architecture and he stumbled.

Strong arms caught him, and when he blinked away the bloom in his eyes, Geoff’s face was inches from his own, his green facial lights pulsing in alarm.

‘Geoff!’ Michael said, heart leaping with sudden hope and disbelief. ‘Geoff, you’re here, please fucking tell me you’re real!’

Geoff clutched him tighter, pulling him into a hug. ‘Of course I’m here! You’re the one who disappeared!’

‘Guys, I hate to break up the reunion, but we’ve got more incoming!’ Jeremy yelled.

‘Jack, can you give them a minute?’ Ryan called, over the quick cracks of scout rifle fire.

Michael saw Jack run over, relief clear in every line of his solid, armoured body.

‘I’m so glad it worked, Michael!’ he said. He gathered himself for an instant, then threw out a ward of dawn around them. Vex bolts sizzled against the purple shield, and Michael’s light strengthened under Jack’s influence, clearing his mind and supporting his tired body.

‘You found me,’ he said, wonderingly.

‘Ryan did,’ Geoff told him. ‘He used the data we’d gathered here, sent a program through the Vex network, and when it found your Ghost it activated the gate.’

‘Ryan, you beautiful bastard!’ Michael shouted, spotting the Warlock fighting off a trio of minotaurs with Gavin’s help.

Gavin jumped off a pillar and jammed a knife into the back of one of the machines. It screeched and fell, throwing Gavin off the edge of the platform. 

He disappeared into the abyss with a wail.

‘Guardian down!’ his Ghost warned them.

‘Gavin!’ Michael screamed, the horror of losing his friend all over again surging through him like a solar flare.

His hammer sprang to his hand without a thought, and he burst out of Jack’s bubble with a roar of fury.

Burning hammers flew in all directions, melting Vex into slag. Rage and pain hummed in Michael’s veins, keeping his conduit to the Traveller wide open, keeping the hammers flying until every Vex in the Vault was dead.

Michael sagged when the last harpy was nothing but ash, turning despairingly to the spot where Gavin had disappeared.

He found his Hunter friend staring at him, wide-eyed, and laughed suddenly with relief. Gavin's Ghost had probably revived him only a few seconds after he had fallen. Michael had forgotten, in the grip of his terror, that death wasn’t usually something to fear.

‘Bloody hell, boi, where did that come from?’ Gavin asked.

‘The wrong future,’ Michael said. He opened his left hand, revealing the Ghost core that he had brought back from that terrible potential timeline.

Geoff recognised it at once, his hand flickering curiously towards it then pulling back from the horror it implied.

‘It won’t be our future,’ he promised, sounding shaken but determined.

‘No,’ Michael agreed, looking around at his friends. ‘It won’t be our future.’


End file.
